ISO Critical Review and Claims Validation

What

The development of a life cycle assessment (LCA) for which marketing claims will be developed, for which an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) will be developed as well, or where an LCA is required by some entity (e.g., for certain situations in California) may require a third-party review.

The ISO standards (14040 and 14040 in particular) set forth certain expectations as to how an LCA third-party review must be conducted.

Further details have been provided in another document (ISO/TS 14071:2014(en)

Further details for carbon are specified in ISO/TS 14067:2013 (en)

The review is typically governed by a checklist that seeks documentation that the reviewer checked that certain required aspects of the report were present and appropriate. Though reviewers are not required to be certified, the most experienced reviewers may hold registration as a LCA Certified Professional granted by the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment. JBE currently has three reviewers that have this certification. Considerations for claims review are similar but not subjected to a rigorous process. Key to claims review is the application of greenwashing guidance.

Why

An LCA report cannot be used to support an EPD unless it has been third-party validated.

How

An LCA reviewer will compare the checklist listing of requirements (based on the ISO standards) to the contents of the LCA report.

It is also a responsibility of the reviewer to confirm that the results obtained were produced in a defensible and appropriate manner.

Key elements of the review include: 

• Strategic spot-checking of the calculations,

• Confirming the contents conform to PCR guidance (if one exists and governs the process),

• Confirming that the assumptions made and exclusions performed were appropriate,

• Checking that the LCA model (if used) is performing in accordance with the system as described by the report,

• Comparison to results obtained by others,

• Reviewing the data to confirm that outliers were identified and handled properly,

• Confirming that data was representative, and

• Confirming that the sensitivity analysis was performed in an appropriate way to identify potential tipping points that could "flip" the results.